Of perfect 10 is perfectly horrible
SIMONE BILES, one of the most talented gymnasts in history, will transfix millions when she takes to the mat in the Olympics next month.
The 19-year-old Texan, who last month became the first American to win four consecutive national championships, has been called a lock to strike gold in Rio de Janeiro. Everyone else has become an afterthought.
But there will be a flaw in Biles’ performance, one that even her legendary coach, Martha K Karolyi, is p powerless to o overcome in t training.
Biles c can’t score a p perfect 10.
That preening, iconic score was eliminated in 2006 and R Rio will demons onstrate the fruition of a generation of elite athletes specifically trained in the athletic prowess fostered by the new Code of Points.
What’s missing in this new era of elite gymnastics is the riveting drama and worldwide fervor a spectacular performance ignited in the glory daysof old.
In a new book “The End of the Perfect Ten,” journalist Dvora Meyers, a former gymnast, vividly lays out the before and after of the historic change — and all that it has wrought.
For one thing, the Americans really have no competition these days. That alone could really dull thecoming games.
“The United States is so dominant that the only question is exactly how much they’re going to win by this time,” wrote Meyers, a New York-based author.
Compare Biles’ center stage to the one Nadia Comaneci seized command of in 1976.
The 14-year-old waif from Romania transformed the dispirited Montreal Summer Games, only four years past the horrors of Mu- nich, into an electrifying global event by scoring the first perfect 10 in an Olympics gymnastics event.
The camera caught the confusion and disturbance betrayed in the expressions of both Comaneci and her coach, Bela Karolyi, Martha’s husband, when her score flashed as 1.00. Even the computers couldn’t fathom that a 10 was possible. An announcer had to break the news.
By comparison, Biles’ victory will likely post in the vicinity of 125.000, the high score she just made history with in winning the national championship on Sunday. Hardly an elegant number and many fans won’t entirely grasp the new standard of excellence she’s setting.
But it was Comaneci’s spectacular performance that set gymnastics on a course that eventually led it downhill.
Hers might have been not just the first perfect 10, but possibly the last real one awarded. Most afterward were deemed somewhat suspect by purists.
By the 1988 Olympics perfect 10s were so commonplace one critic started referring to them as “imperfect 10s.” One contributing factor was that judges still had the wiggle room to tweak a score to favor a star.
But there was also little doubt that politically-motivated judges were inflating scores.
The Eastern Bloc’s long domination of the gymnastics spelled certain defeat for U.S. competitors when they first emerged in international competition. Their performances were blighted by unwarranted low scores.
But another long simmering controversy broke open first.
After Comaneci came a crop of what Meyers calls the “mini monsters.” Tiny teenagers with aerodynamic bodies were undeniable crowd-pleasers, bringing fans roaring to their feet with floor routines that showcased their daring acrobatics.
Ambitious coaches started picking off young gymnasts with the right body type early. In the ’90s, evidence emerged suggesting the grueling training the girls were subjected to was a contributing factor in stunting growth.
So were the diets they had to maintain their size.
The scandal blew wide open with the publication of the 1995 book “Little Girls in Pretty Boxes: the Making and Breaking of Elite Gymnasts and Figure Skaters,” by Joan Ryan.
Ryan specifically targeted Karolyi, accusing him of terrorizing his young athletes, subjecting them to insult-laced tirades. She